The U.S. Is Doing an Awful Lot of Spying on Pakistan

By Brian Feldman

September 3, 2013

A new report from The Washington Post, based on documents provided to them by embattled leaker Edward Snowden, has revealed the United States' large preoccupation with keeping tabs on Pakistan. Pakistan appears to have created a real renaissance opportunity for America's spying apparatus, raising red flags across the spectrum of concerns, from nuclear volatility to human rights abuses and many things in-between. "No other nation draws as much scrutiny across so many categories of national security concern," according to the article authored by Greg Miller, Craig Whitlock, and Barton Gellman.

The information comes from the same documents that revealed the government's "black budget" used to fund spying and surveillance programs, and the focus on Pakistan has as much to do with what the government doesn't know as what is does.

Pakistan appears at the top of charts listing critical U.S. intelligence gaps. It is named as a target of newly formed analytic cells. And fears about the security of its nuclear program are so pervasive that a budget section on containing the spread of illicit weapons divides the world into two categories: Pakistan and everybody else.